Edwin A. Grosvenor

Edwin Augustus Grosvenor (August 30, 1845 – September 15, 1936) was a historian, author, chairman of the history department at Amherst College, and president of the national organization of Phi Beta Kappa societies from 1907 to 1919.[1] Grosvenor was called "one of the most cosmopolitan of Americans" by author and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson.[2] His son, Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, was the first employee and longtime editor of National Geographic Magazine.

Edwin A. Grosvenor
Born	Edwin Augustus Grosvenor August 30, 1845 West Newbury, Massachusetts
Died	September 15, 1936 (aged 91) Amherst, Massachusetts
Education	Brown High School
Alma mater	Amherst College
Spouse(s)	Lilian Hovey Waters ​ ​ (m. after 1873)​
Children	Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor Edwin Prescott Grosvenor,
Parent(s)	Edwin Prescott Grosvenor Harriet Sanborn Grosvenor

Early years

Grosvenor was born in 1845 in West Newbury, Massachusetts, the son of Dr. Edwin Prescott Grosvenor and the author Harriet Sanborn Grosvenor.[3]

He prepared at Brown High School in Newburyport, and graduated from Amherst College in 1867 as class poet and salutatorian.[4] After graduating, he served as a tutor at Robert College in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey). After returning to the U.S., he obtained an M.A. from Amherst College and was ordained as a minister in Newburyport in 1872.

Career

In 1872, Edwin Grosvenor returned to Robert College with his young wife and began teaching. Grosvenor then taught at Amherst College from 1892 to 1914, and was professor emeritus until his death in 1936.

His two volume Constantinople was "the most important treatise ... that has yet appeared in English," wrote a reviewer in the Springfield Republican. "One of the books of the year."[5] The New York Times said that Grosvenor was "uniquely suited to the task."[6] Grosvenor was President of the United Chapters Phi Beta Kappa from 1907 to 1919 and a frequent commencement speaker, often talking on the subject of "the love of wisdom is the guide of life … knowledge applied to right uses and to the service of man."[7]

Grosvenor received honorary degrees from Wabash College, Alfred University, Marietta College, and the College of William & Mary. Grosvenor was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1896.[8] He was a member of the Authors' Club, and numerous other societies.

Personal life

On October 23, 1873, Grosvenor married Lilian Hovey Waters (b. 1852), of Millbury. Lilian was the daughter of Col. Asa Holman Waters and the granddaughter of the gunsmith Asa Waters. Together, Edwin and Lilian resided for a number of years in the Waters Mansion in Millbury.[9] Just over two years later, the couple gave birth to twins on October 28, 1875:[10]

• Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor (1875–1966), who married Elsie May Bell (1878–1964), the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell.[11]
• Edwin Prescott Grosvenor (1875–1930), who married Thelma Somerville Cudlipp (1891–1983) in 1918. After his death, she married Charles Seymour Whitman, the former Governor of New York.[12]

Grosvenor died in Amherst on September 15, 1936.[13]

Bibliography

Books

• The Hippodrome of Constantinople: and Its Still Existing Monuments, 1889, 62 pages
• Constantinople, Volume 1 and 2, Roberts Brothers, 1895 LCCN=04022752. With an introduction by General Lew Wallace.
• Andronike, the Heroine of the Greek Revolution, by Stephanos Theodoros Xenos, translated from the Original Greek by E.A. Grosvenor, Boston, Mass., 1897.
• Permanence of the Greek Type, American Antiquarian Society, 1898.
• Contemporary History of the World, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1899
• A General History of the World, Volumes 1 to 4, with Victor Duruy and Louis Edwin Van Norman, The Review of Reviews Co., 1912

Selected articles

• "Address for the United Chapters," in Addresses at the Presentation of the Chapter Rooms in Morris Pratt Memorial Library, Phi Beta Kappa, 1913
• "Constantinople and Sancta Sophia," National Geographic, May, 1915, pp. 459–482.
• "Evolution of Russian Government," National Geographic, July, 1905, pp. 309–332.
• "Growth of Russia," National Geographic, May, 1900, pp. 169–185.
• "Last Night of the Misolonghi," published in the New Century Speaker, a collection of extracts by Prof. Henry Allyn Frink, Ph.D., Ginn & C., Boston, 1898, page 52.
• "Races of Europe," National Geographic, December, 1918, pages 441–553.

References

1. Woolley, Mary Emma and D.P. Kingsley (January 1926). "Women in Phi Beta Kappa". The Phi Beta Kappa Key. 6 (6): 375–383. JSTOR 42914699.
2. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth (1902). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Cambridge: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. p. 3.
3. "Amherst Prof 50 Years Wed". The Boston Globe. October 21, 1923. p. 31. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
4. Hills, William Henry; Luce, Robert (January 1896). "Sketches of Writers: Professor Edwin A. Grosvenor". The Writer Magazine. IX: 9–11. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
5. "Advertisement for the book Constantinople". The Literary News: A Monthly Journal of Current Literature. 17. February 1896.
6. "THE CITY OF CONSTANTINE; CONSTANTINOPLE. By Edwin A. Grosvenor, Professor of European History at Amherst College". The New York Times. December 25, 1895.
7. Phi Beta Kappa. Alpha of New York (Union College) (1917). The Centenary of Alpha of New York of Phi Beta Kappa: Celebrated at Union College June 11 and 12, 1917. Schenectady, N.Y.: Gazette Press. p. 3.
8. American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
9. "History of the Asa Waters Mansion". Archived from the original on 15 August 2013. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
10. http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/l/a/m/M-F-LaMont/GENE3-0072.html
11. "Dr. Gilbert H. Grosvenor Dies. Head of National Geographic, 90. Editor of Magazine 55 Years Introduced Photos, Increased Circulation to 4.5 Million". New York Times. February 5, 1966. Retrieved 2007-07-21. Baddeck, N.S., Feb. 4, 1966 (Canadian Press) Dr. Gilbert H. Grosvenor, chairman of the board and former president of the National Geographic Society and editor of the National Geographic magazine from 1899 to 1954, died on the Cape Breton Island estate once owned by his father-in-law, the inventor Alexander Graham Bell. He was 90 years old.
12. "Ex-Gov. Whitman Engaged To Marry. Betrothal To Mrs. Thelma S. C. Grosvenor, Widow Of Lawyer, Is Announced. Fiance Formerly Judge Served As District Attorney Of New York County His Daughter To Be Wed In June". The New York Times. April 5, 1933.
13. TIMES, Specfa! to TtE NEW ORK (16 September 1936). "DR. E. A. GROSVENOR, EDUCATOR, IS BEAD; World Traveler and Authority on European History Long Taught at Amherst, EX-PROFESSOR IN TURKEY Filled Chair of Robert College, i stanbuI -- Author of Many. Books affd Articles" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 25 September 2019.

Further reading

• Poole, Robert M. Explorers House: National Geographic and the World it Made. New York: Penguin, 2004. ISBN 1-59420-032-7
• The Writer magazine, "Sketches of Writers: Professor Edwin S. Grosvenor," Vol. IX. January, 1896. Pages 9–11.